TOY STORY 3 is utterly heartwarming

Michael Keaton is approaching hero status. Let's do the list: Beetlejuice. Mr. Mom. Batman. Jack Frost. His FBI agent from JACKIE BROWN and OUT OF SIGHT. That guy from Multiplicity. And now, Ken.

Of course, most of the joy of TOY STORY 3 is in spending time with our returning characters. I had a smile on my face from the first time I heard Tom Hanks' voice as Woody through to the final words from Tim Allen's Buzz. Everything you've loved from the previous TOY STORYs is here: you like the wildly imaginative world of Andy's playtimes? The one that opens the film puts the other two to shame. The toys also have another amazing MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE type breakout, and also has some of the finest character work in the history of computer animation.

The thing I was most worried about going into TOY STORY 3 was the potential for thematic stagnancy (yes, thematic stagnancy). Based on the logline of this film, it seems like a very similar story to TOY STORY 2 - the toys have to learn to move on from Andy and accept a new life. But the Pixar guys take a brilliant angle on this potentially-repetitive theme and make this one about mortality. There's a couple of very surprising moments in the film that touch on death in a very direct way, and it's clear that Pixar is making this film for an audience that's grown up with these films. It trades in on the bonds we've made with the characters in a way that reminded me of something more akin to BEFORE SUNSET than say, ALLADIN: PRINCE OF THIEVES. Seeing Buzz, Woody and the gang accept death is has a haunting quality based in your seven year-old recollections of these toys.

But the new toys are pitch-perfect too, from Ned Beatty's strawberry-sweet villain Lotso to the informant telephone toy to the improv theatre troupe that Woody runs into. But Ken steals the show, in a truly amazing collaboration between the Pixar artists and Mr. Keaton. Whenever the film feels like it might be getting a little too dark, Ken shows up to remind you of the pure entertainment value of these films.

TOY STORY 3 is a stunning achievement, probably the best of the films in what will have to be considered as the greatest children's series of all time.

THE A-TEAM Wants To Be A Tony Scott Movie So Bad

The opening three minutes of Joe Carnahan's hey-we-haven't-remade-every-'80s-property-yet project, THE A-TEAM, had me convinced that I was about to fall in love.

First, there was the Scott Free Production tag. Y'all know what that means, right? My boy Tony Scott had his hands all over this! Or possibly his hack brother. But then came the subtitles, and I became convinced that Tony had come up to Mr. Carnahan at some point and said, "Joe, you know what would be great? If the subtitles mimicked the actors' delivery and we made the word 'blood' appear in red. Blood red. Get it?" To which Joe Carnahan could only drop to his knees and thank Tony for his unrivaled cinematic genius, while Ridley went off and moped about the Robin Hood opening week gross. And then, after the DOMINO-esque subtitle display made me giddy with neo-impressionistic joy, they went and blasted The Game's "House of Pain" on the soundtrack.

Friends, it was at this point that I seriously re-evaluated my expectations for this film. To be honest, I've never seen the show, but it sounds like a redneck version of Mission: Impossible, and my expectations were somewhere around a Brett Ratner Level (a BRL, for those hip to the acronym game). But Tony Scott-inspired visuals and a hip-hop soundtrack? I began to suspect that this film may have been made just for me.

Sadly, Jessica Biel shows up and there's a oddly dated "Three Kings"-ish inspired subplot and Carnahan decides to go to full-out cartoon mode in the third act, and you end up with something that, while certainly not at BRLs of disappointment, is nowhere near the frenzied delirium of a Tony Scott film.

THE A-TEAM does have one remarkable sequence, where the squad jumps out of a plane in a tank when they're shot down, only to have the tank shot down as well. The scene is full of tension, humour, and some insane action beats. There's also some fun stuff with the CIA characters in the film that recalls the more madcap moments of Carnahan's earlier effort, SMOKIN' ACES.

But at the end of it, I just wanted to see a Tony Scott version of this. Or THE LOSERS, which I liked better.